


There's Always Something (i miss)

by TUNiU



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drug Addict Sherlock, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Overdosing, Past Drug Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23507461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TUNiU/pseuds/TUNiU
Summary: Sherlock wakes up in the hospital from an unplanned drug overdose and fears he will lose John and Rosie.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57





	There's Always Something (i miss)

**Author's Note:**

> I posted the idea on tumblr and never imagined I would be the one writing it.

Even before Sherlock opened his eyes, he knew he was in hospital. A deep breath brought the faint smell of antiseptic cleaner. His fingers traced along rough bedsheets. He swallowed and the pain in the lining of his throat told him he'd been intubated not too long ago. Plastic tubings tugged near his left underarm. The doctors had had to find alternative places to insert the IV since the normal elbow veins were all blown from years of drug abuse.

Sherlock opened his eyes. The fluorescent lights were dimmed and a faint sound of crickets came through the walls. He was in a room along an exterior wall then. And it was night.

"Are you with us brother dear?" Mycroft asked from his seat next to Sherlock's bed. He leaned forward and balanced his chin on his folded hands which were themselves balanced on the handle of his umbrella being held perfectly perpendicular to the ground.

Sherlock turned to his right to look at Mycroft. "Yes," he answered bluntly.

"We'll see." At Sherlock's questioning frown Mycroft added, "you've woken up several times over the past few days, never remembering the previous times, and never for long."

However, Sherlock's attention was focused solely on the fresh track marks on his right elbow. There were several puncture wounds, all neatly scabbed over. The skin underneath blooming in several shades of bruised brown.

_ But._

_ No._

_ He hadn't._ Or rather he could not remember having recently felt the need to use his drugs. And with Rosie living at Baker Street, coming home every day from school, Sherlock could not allow himself to use. It was inconceivable. She was so young. Currently too young to understand his penchant for the drugs.

And yet he didn't remember taking anything, or prior to that, going out and buying a supply.

"What did I take?" he asked Mycroft.

"We're having your blood analyzed, but the results have not come in yet," Mycroft answered.

_ No._

Sherlock felt his mind stutter. The data his senses were feeding his brain made no sense. He couldn't force the shape of his deduction. He stared at Mycroft, dragging every scrap of information from his brother.

  * _ Bags under eyes _ \- several days with little sleep.
  * _ Frown lines less pronounced _ \- relieved with no extra familial worry.
  * _ Donut powder under left thumbnail combined with aroma of chicory and chemical decaffination _ \- recently ate from a hospital coffee cart.
  * _ Suit wrinkles from only one day, yet spoke of Sherlock being in hospital for several days _ \- went home to change.
  * _ New dart lines in the jacket _ \- diet is going well.

Why go home and yet eat from a hospital vendor? Mycroft stayed silent and still during Sherlock's mental calculations. Why would they test Sherlock's blood for what he took? He always left a--

_ Oh._

There was no list.

The facts made no sense. Sherlock lay in a hospital bed obviously recovering from a drug overdose, yet he had left no note and Mycroft was not as worried as he should have been when presented with a brother who had provided absolutely no means of saving himself from an overdose. That is what the list was. A cheat. A promise. A safety net. A game. Here is what I took so you can counter it when you find me.

_ No list. _

Sherlock felt himself falling into his own mind, analysing what he could remember about himself and his interactions. The last day he remembered was Wednesday, he knew this with absolute certainty, because Rosie had gotten into the habit of jumping down the stairs, hugging his legs and saying "guess what day it is?" And Sherlock would dutifully say "what day is it?" To which Rosie would cackle like a maniac and say, "hump day. " She did it every Wednesday for the past month. At first, Sherlock had questioned John, worried about his daughter's obsession, but John just told him it was a phase and would pass. Until it did, he played along. It took so little effort to act simple for her, and she laughed so wonderfully. Absolutely unencumbered by the stress of the world.

So the last day he could recall was Wednesday. Sherlock rolled the days back in his mind trying to find the impetus. Trying to find the nugget of depression that had started him down a spiral that would end in his trying to overdose and kill himself. _ Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday, Sunday, Saturday, Friday, Thursday _, back around to another Wednesday. All had bits of bright happiness and laughter and blog entries and casework and family dinners that John made a requirement of co-parenting.

_ One meal a day Sherlock, we need to teach Rosie good habits. _

_ I'm not hungry. _

_ Then pretend to eat, I'm sure even you can fool a child. But we will sit down, like a family, and have dinner together. _

The dinners were boring, half deleted affairs of spaghettis and vegetables. The casework was challenging, not because Scotland Yard had wisened up and only presented him true mysteries, but because the cases now all had to get solved around Rosie's schedule. School, and homework, and playtimes and bedtimes. _ And dear god above! I will not miss a single kiss goodnight not ever again. _

But no.

Back to Wednesday. The last Wednesday Sherlock remembered. He recalled Rosie going to school in the morning, he recalled delving into the case of the Dockyard Arsonist.

Why would he kill himself? The entire mental exercise took seconds.

"Who found me?" he asked. Already knowing the answer. Rosie went to school. John went to work. And Sherlock stayed home deducing so that Rosie would never come home to an empty house.

"Miss Watson," Mycroft answered.

Abject shame poured through Sherlock's entire being and he turned in his bed so that he lay curled away from Mycroft.

"Oh Sherlock," Mycroft said softly.

"You should find John a place in the same school district," Sherlock demanded. "It would be too hard on Rosie to change schools midyear."

_ Stupid._ He hadn't thought finding his own overdosed dead body would be too hard for Rosie, had he?

Why had he done this to himself? He remembered being reasonably happy. Life was going well, the cases were going well. John was happy. Rosie was happy. What made Sherlock so desperate that he did drugs in the flat? What possessed him to even bring drugs to Baker Street. Rosie got into everything, she could have discovered it and taken it.

He'd been clean for seven years.

"Sherlock."

"What?"

"You're missing a most vital clue to your circumstances," Mycroft offered.

Sherlock flipped over roughly to glare at his brother, the IV line yanking at his skin. "I am lying in a hospital bed, because Rosie found me at Baker Street, overdosing on something we don't know because I did not leave a note. Tell me brother dear, what vital clue am I missing in my deduction that I tried to kill myself?"

Mycroft spoke gently, "you are not left handed." He softly patted Sherlock's right forearm, under where the track marks lay healing in the crook of his elbow. "Your arsonists found you and tried to remove you from the investigation," Mycroft explained patiently.

Sherlock hated the tone his brother used, gentle like the children they used to be before. The observations clicked into place. "The donut. John and Rosie were here to visit me, Rosie made you eat." Sherlock sniffed away the overwhelming emotion he'd just felt. "You'll get fat...ter."

Mycroft did not rise to the bait, he merely said, "They spent the last several days watching over you, you haven't lost them."

* * *

Sherlock didn't truly believe Mycroft for several days, not until John and Rosie took Sherlock home back to Baker Street. John helped him up the steps and over to the couch, where he slumped back, exhausted just from that small journey. Rosie climbed up and nestled at his side, her tiny arms wrapped around his waist. John merely kissed the top of Sherlock’s head and set the kettle to boil.


End file.
